On the recommendation of my sister I paid a visit to The Famous Concord Shop to shop for a friend’s birthday present. They bill themselves as a “hardware store for the kitchen.” The description is accurate since you can find just about little gadget you need to stock your kitchen. I thought the gadget bins and Crate and Barrel or Bath and Board were good, but this place tops them. I’ll the stuff is quality from the pans to knives, to the teapots. It’s not a high end looking place like Williams and Sonoma and they don’t sell any appliances, but they serve a wonderful niche. Where else are you going to find a press that makes an egg into a cube. They even have a lovely German Shepherd that will greet you at the door and ask you to play tennis with it.
July 24, 2005
July 21, 2005
Scary People
Some people in this country scary me, I mean they really scare me. Sure half-cocked ideas come up on normal conversation, just some people standing around BSing. Does this belong on the radio. I found a disturbing sound clip linked off of TomPaine Common Sense. It has a radio talk show host Patrick Campbell talking to Rep. Tom Tancredo about the possibility of very serious terrorist attacks on the US and what we might threaten them with as a preventive measure. The Rocky Mountain News out of Denver had a write-up as well. All this just makes me more concerned about the people running our country.
July 18, 2005
Girl under charges for throwing stones
Now I know for sure that I need a break from America (err, sorry Mexico, Canada, Central and South America I mean a break from the USA). In my daily news reading I came across a BBC news story about a girl in California who is being held on felony changes for throwing stones at a group of boys who had been tossing water balloons at here. One of the boys was hurt sustaining a deep gash in his head requiring medical attention. From the article “An ambulance was called, but arrived flanked by three police patrol vehicles. A helicopter meanwhile hovered overhead.” As for the girl’s detention she has spent “has since spent five days in detention, in which she was granted one 30 minute visit by her parents, and has spent a month under house arrest” and is due back in court at the end of the month. Did I mention that the girl is 11?
WTF! By this standard how much stuff did you do as a kid that would be deemed illegal and worthy of legal action? She admitted that she threw the stones and the boy admitted that he started the fight. Simple. Done. I really don’t understand what the big deal is. Okay, maybe one cop and a the cop taking the kid back to her parents. That should be enough just to scare her. When I was a kid I would have been scared shitless if a cop telling me I did something wrong. She did do something wrong by hurting the boy, but three cruisers and a helicopter for a an 11 year old girl with stones??!! Five days detention and only seeking your parents for 30 minutest during that time!!? House arrest?!! Thugs twice this girl’s and get off easier. Did I mention that the girl is 11?
July 16, 2005
Trinity 60th Anniversary
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the first atomic explosion at the Trinity site in New Mexico (now part of the White Sands Missile Range). Twice a year they open up the site for the general public. I found some fun little bits (in italics, other text left for reference) on their “rumors” page.
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Finger printed by Disney
This is gotten coverage on Slashdot, but I thought I would bring it some more attention. Basically Disney is using an ID code derived for two fingerprints to validate season ticket holders. I don’ t want to start a Camel’s Note analogy but is really does seem that private interests are collecting more and more information on us little folk. One thing I have not seen is a concerted effort on the part of the government to regulate what information the private sector is allowed to ask for as a requirement for completion of service.
It is been established that one private party can require another to give up even basic, protected rights as part of a contract. If you question the policy they you can politely be ask to take your business elsewhere. A ticket is a contract. So with this logic a movie theater could require that I submit to a background check for me to walk into their place of business. Sound silly? You landlord might do a credit check to verify that you can pay your rent. A prospective employer might check to see if you have a criminal record. I not even going to start to think about increasing the risk of identify theft only to ask you if you know how many companies and individuals know your home address and phone number.
My concern is that only a few people pay attention to this sort of thing. Slowly more information about you gets out into the private databases, surly more people have access to these and on one is keeping track for those who don’t pay attention. In a country where the individual is continually more responsible for every aspect of their lives and there are less and less safety nets (a vital trapping of civilization) there should at least be more discussion about this area. As usual technology is outstripping people’s knowledge of what said technology can be used for.
